


imagine the end of the storm

by statusquo_ergo



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Prison, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 18:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11652429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Prompt 3:A step by step recount of the thought process, the emotional turmoil, the desperate determination that kept Harvey going all the time Mike was in jail and how this lead to welcoming him home (as in his home, his heart). Based on thisgifset.





	imagine the end of the storm

This isn’t Harvey’s first time in a prison.

He’s never been an inmate, it goes without saying, but in his time at the District Attorney’s office, he had more than one occasion to visit Lincoln Correctional, where the staff is generally friendly and cooperative. Edgecombe Correctional, where they’re a bit less so but none of the prisoners ever harassed him. Queensboro Correctional, a total shithole and in Long Island City besides.

After Jessica hired him, he figured those days were over.

Well, in a sense, they were; he’s moved up in the world. Climbed the corporate ladder, and the penal system alongside.

Made it all the way to Danbury Federal.

The parking garage adjacent to Pearson Specter Litt, as well-illuminated as can be, looks like a hospital waiting room and smells like moldy elevators, as a decent parking garage should. Danbury, its lot out in the open air in the middle of a grassy knoll, looks like a New York City public school and smells like powdered cleanser and rotting shit.

Harvey rolls up the windows of the Lexus and puts his hands in his lap, looking down at the dash.

8:01. He should be getting home; it’s been a long day, and he’s got a lot of work to do tomorrow.

_I guess it’s time to get busy living and get busy dying._

Harvey’s knuckles fade to a blotchy mix of white and red as his nails dig into his fleshy palms. Danbury isn’t even on the same level as Shawshank and that was a stupid fucking thing to say. _Watch your back in there,_ what if those were the last words he ever got to say to Mike? What kind of goddamn fucking irony would that be, haunting him until the end of his days.

It hurts to slam his fist against the wheel, but it doesn’t hurt enough; there’ll be no bruise, no blood. Not that it would solve anything if there was, just, it might help, a little bit, to see something on the outside to help him realize what he’s feeling on the inside, to show other people who want to know what’s wrong with him, something that he can point to and say _This, this is what’s hurting me, this gaping wound right here, now do you understand?_

The answer would be no, the answer is always no, but at least then he could turn around and blame them for not getting it, for being too stupid, too blind.

There might be one person, though. One person who isn’t too stupid.

Harvey turns the key in the ignition, then turns it again, shouting a guttural noise and smacking his palm against the horn when the engine roars a reminder at him that he has to release the emergency break before he can go anywhere.

Deep breath.

\---

A light breeze tosses Harvey’s coat away from his legs and the scent of fresh paint and laundry detergent into his face, and he hunches his shoulders as he sticks his hands in his pockets. Across the street, an old woman rips open translucent blue bags of recyclable plastic; the clanking sound of soda bottles being tossed into her tin shopping cart do a decent job hiding Harvey’s footsteps, but Rachel still manages to turn before he reaches her.

“Harvey,” she says with a nervous smile. “What are you doing here?”

They’re in the same boat, really. Both losing such an important fixture in their lives to something so hurtful, so unfair. He looks down at her, hoping to appear more poised than he feels; it’s all his fault, of course.

“I came to let you know that I dropped him off,” he explains, stepping over a wad of gum on the sidewalk, “and, um, he looks as good as he could look.”

Resigned, that’s how he looked. Defeated. Beat down broken, even before he set foot through the gates, through the doors.

As good as he could look.

“And I think he’s gonna be okay.”

He will, because he has to.

Rachel smiles at him.

“I appreciate that,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But you could have told me that over the phone.”

It’s true. It’s true, but she didn’t have to say it.

“So what are you really doing here?”

She knows. She might not believe it, she might not think she’s certain, but she knows. She knows he’s come here on his knees to commiserate, to shove himself up onto the same level where she sits, loving Mike, needing him badly enough to feel the same way about this awful thing.

She knows, and she’s not turning him away. It’s kind of her, sweet and good.

Of course, who else feels the way that they do? Maybe she’s just being pragmatic, using him in a way she can’t use anyone else in the world. Not that he’s in any sort of position to judge her for it, guilty of exactly the same.

“I miss him.”

Casting her eyes down to the cracked pavement, Rachel nods.

“I miss him too.”

She knows.

\---

There’s something calming about the office in the dead of night.

Truly, it’s not so much the dead of night anymore as it is going on five, but it’s still dark out, so the effect is the same.

He didn’t expect anyone to answer any of the calls he made at such a ghastly hour, but after leaving all those messages, it’s now on the grab-bag of lawyers, accountants, bankers, and Wall Street execs to make the next moves. Meanwhile, all the paperwork he can do without collaboration is done, signed sealed and delivered; his desk is reorganized, his records dusted and straightened; the bulbs in his lamps have all been changed, whether they needed it or not. Harvey tosses the last cardboard sleeve in the garbage and puts his hands in his pockets, tipping his head down and kicking his heels against the floor as he walks in a wide circle.

There’s something lonely about the office in the dead of night.

The coffee in the breakroom is watered-down dirt, as he well knows, but the coffee cart guy won’t be setting up until seven, and he won’t be selling until about quarter past. Tossing his head back, Harvey sighs at the ceiling, then turns on his heel and shuffles out the door.

He dumps two extra scoops of grounds into the filter, flipping the coffeemaker’s power switch and turning to the table where he sits, fixing his gaze on the little red power light. The reprieve doesn’t last long before he’s back up, running his finger along the edge of the table as he circles it, waiting for the telltale sound of liquid trickling down into the pot, the subtle click of completion.

He changes direction to keep from getting dizzy.

The stream slows to a drip and comes to a stop; Harvey pours himself a large mug and leaves the pot, still nearly three quarters full, turning the maker off before he walks back to the hall and sniffs his acrid drink. He should have brought a mug from home for the day; even reheated, it’s bound to be better than this.

Then again, it’s been ages since he was here so early, and that’s the sort of habit a person forgets after awhile.

He ought to go back to his office. Not that there’s anything more to do in there, but whenever the first person shows up to work, he’ll want to make a better impression than that he’s just wearing down the carpets.

He ought to, and yet.

Mike Ross, Junior Partner.

The frosted letters have yet to be shaved away, the hat rack lamp thing in the corner not yet removed—though, come to think of it, Mike inherited that, so it’s probably going to stay right where it is. There’s a baseball or something on the desk, next to a little box; Harvey wonders why they’re there, what means enough to Mike that he’d keep them so close but not so much that he wouldn’t’ve packed them up to take with him when he tried to quit.

Looking past the desk, out the windows on the opposite wall, Harvey watches the sun begins to rise. When it creeps past the tower of The Mondrian, the glare hits Harvey’s eyes and makes him flinch away; it must be about quarter to six, then. Already? Still, he’s got about another hour before the associates start filtering in, two for the partners.

Oh, wait; that’s right. Never mind.

Jessica will be in around seven, probably. Donna and Gretchen too. Louis at…some time, he doesn’t much care, and Rachel has class today, but he doesn’t know when, or how it’ll dictate her schedule.

Harvey tries to look back into Mike’s office, but the glare is still strong, and anyway, it’s not like Mike will come running down the hall with a stack of briefs or whatever if he stands here long enough. Instead, he turns and starts back down the hall, raising the mug he’d sort of forgotten about to his lips.

Absolute sludge.

Back at the breakroom, he pours the rest out in the sink, refilling the mug with water and a bit of dish soap and leaving to soak until someone comes along who feels a little more motivated.

He’ll try to avoid coming back this way for the rest of the day.

(He’ll try.)

\---

 _Panic_ and _pride_ are weird and confusing emotions to experience together.

_I got up there and they turned me away._

Tightness in his chest, a vice grip around his heart as he goes cold suddenly, so cold, and everything is lost, missed, gone, pointless, forgotten, dying, dying—

_He got into a fight._

A rush up through his heart, literally _feeling_ the serotonin releasing into his brain as he remembers yeah, that’s my boy, that’s my guy, sticking up for himself, setting his place in that world where he doesn’t belong, but he can tough it out, make it if he tries—

Say it again, again, again, until you start to believe. (No time for that.)

He should’ve seen it coming, he really, really should’ve. Danbury, Club Fed, is full of softies, the sort of cocky shitheads Mike is used to dealing with on a daily basis, all bark and no bite, but there’s always one dipshit intent on setting himself apart, the alpha dog pissing on everyone’s leg. And sure, Mike has a heart as big as all outdoors, but what could have set him off so badly, _offended_ him so much—

Frank Gallo.

Of all the gin joints in all the world.

Down in the visiting lobby, clean enough to give visitors the impression that their loved ones are being cared for in a nice, civil facility but not so clean as to pretend to be anything other than the prison that it is, Harvey takes his time collecting his coat and his wallet from the locker by the front desk, checking to make sure he remembered to put his bar card back in its plastic sleeve, and his keys are in his coat pocket. Yes, yes, of course, everything is in order.

The sooner he gets the hell out of here, the sooner he’ll be able to get back to working on getting Mike out of here, too.

All he has to do is keep moving. Out the door and through the gate, across the lot to his car, and the drive is an hour and a half back to the city, less if he really guns it and the threatening rain doesn’t materialize. Then straight to the grindstone for as long as it takes until Mike is out, exonerated of all charges and free to live his life however he pleases.

“Hey, I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Harvey slows but doesn’t stop, resisting the reflex to turn his head as long as he can get away with.

“Don’t act like you don’t remember me, Harvey. We both know why you’re here.”

You sick son of a bitch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harvey replies. “I’m here because I represent the prison.”

Gallo scoffs. Harvey doesn’t want to give any kind of credit to such a scum-sucking rat bastard, but the sooner he admits that they both have leverage, they both have a few cards to threaten each other with, the sooner he can move on to establishing the upper hand.

“Bullshit,” Gallo taunts, and Harvey’s eyes fall shut as his steps pause, only a few yards out of the gate.

“I pulled a string and you came. You think it’s a coincidence I’m standing here while you’re walking out?”

What a moron. Fine; if Gallo wants to hand over one of his aces right away, that’s fine. Harvey has no trouble letting him hang himself.

“Okay, Gallo, you got my attention,” he sneers, walking back toward the prison. “You want me to step inside? Or you want to come out here?”

Gallo swaggers around the little yard he’s penned in like a restless dog. “We both know that’s not possible,” he concedes. Suddenly, the cockiness is gone, superseded by rage that’s been boiling just under the surface since the moment he was convicted, tossed in here to rot, and he lunges at the fence between them, latching his fingers onto the links even though Harvey’s too far away to touch.

“You owe me thirteen years,” he threatens, jabbing his other hand clumsily at his own chest. “I’m gonna collect.”

Oh, bullshit.

“I didn’t do anything to you that that investigator didn’t start and you know it.”

“Well, if his little boyfriend ever shows up in here, I’ll be sure to take it up with him,” Gallo says, grasping for a witty retort.

This is pathetic.

“What do you want, Gallo?”

“I already have what I want,” Gallo fumes. “Which is knowing that every time your phone rings, you’re gonna ask yourself is this the call where you find out that the guy who’s in here for you,” jabbing his fingers through the links right at Harvey’s gut, “is never coming out.”

He’s asking for it.

His boxing reflexes are as sharp as ever when Harvey snatches Gallo’s finger in his fist, bending it back as far as it’ll go without breaking. He wants to, and he would, but he doesn’t need to give Gallo anything else to pin on Mike, to unjustly blame him for.

“Listen to me, you son of a bitch,” Harvey seethes, squeezing Gallo’s finger tighter as he begins to twist under the strain. “You think I can’t hurt you in here? I’ll put a goddamn bounty on your head. I’ll pay ‘em whatever it takes to break your legs.” Gallo winces, gritting his teeth, and it doesn’t hurt enough, not nearly enough.

“And if that doesn’t work, I’ll wait till you get out and I’ll kill you myself.”

He’ll do it, too, no question. He knows how to cover up a murder and it would be a pleasure to see this garbage fermenting in the ground.

“So unless you want that to happen, don’t you ever even look at Mike Ross again.”

Shoving Gallo’s finger against the gate, he releases it and takes the smallest satisfaction in Gallo’s immediate retreat, pulling his arm back and holding his hand close to his side. Harvey glowers hatefully for another moment before smacking his hand against the links, rattling them and making Gallo startle, breaking his stupid façade before Harvey turns and walks away, tensing the muscles in his hands to keep from clenching them into fists.

“Ring, ring, counselor,” Gallo calls after him desperately.

Harvey presses his lips together and keeps walking.

It’s an empty threat. Empty. It is.

Please.

“Ring, ring.”

\---

Harvey has cases, actual cases, calls he should be following up on, documents he should be seeking council for, clients he should be trying to contact, and he isn’t, and he should feel bad about it, he knows he should. He should feel guilty. Guilty enough to do his job, trying to salvage as much business as he can, trying to look out for the firm, his firm. His family.

Pacing the halls, he tries harder and harder (not hard enough) to think of something, anything he can do to help Mike, anyone he can contact, any favor he can call in.

Favor, that’s it.

Suddenly his phone rings, and he has the fleeting thought that the answer has come to him rather than the other way around. He doesn’t deserve it, but Mike does, goddammit, Mike deserves all the favors in the world.

“This is Harvey Specter.”

“You have a call from Danbury Federal Prison.”

_The guy who’s in here for you is never coming out._

“Do you accept the charges?”

Yes he is.

“Yes,” he blurts out over the canned recording.

“I do not understand your response,” the tinny voice chides.

_Yes he is._

“Yes,” he insists. “God dammit.”

“Please respond yes or no,” the voice drones hatefully, and Harvey struggles not to interrupt.

_Yes. He. Is._

“ _Yes._ ”

The line beeps, a static sort of tone like the one a landline makes when a second call is coming in while you’re already on the phone, and then the most blessed sound Harvey has ever heard.

“Hello.”

“Oh, Mike,” he breathes, “thank God.”

“Thank God what?” Mike retorts. “You looked me in the eye and you said you would stay out of it. You couldn’t even make it to the parking lot without threatening Gallo?”

I tried to leave, Harvey wants to say, even though it would only make Mike angrier. _He started it!_ No, he isn’t a child.

( _Thank god, thank god._ )

“Mike, listen to me.”

“No, what, so you can lie to me again?” Mike cuts him off. “Or are you gonna tell me you didn’t do that?”

I did, I did, I did it all for you.

“Look, I didn’t do it because I didn’t think you could handle yourself,” Harvey tries to placate. “I did it because he got under my skin.”

I’m sorry that he hurt me. I’m sorry that I hurt you.

“I don’t give a shit why you did it,” Mike snaps. “You swore you wouldn’t. Instead, you’ve made things worse.”

Worse? No, no, but Mike is safe, Mike is alive, Mike is making a phone call. Mike is angry, he’s focused, he isn’t beaten down, he isn’t defeated, this is good, don’t you understand?

“Harvey, if I can’t even trust you, then I do not stand a chance in here.”

But you do, Mike, you’ve got to. Have the faith in yourself that I have in you, believe that you’re going to live forever.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harvey spies Rachel glaring at him from his office and as much as he wants to stay on the phone for the rest of the day, at least, or the rest of the week, he knows that won’t do anyone any good. Mike only has a few minutes, anyway, before the phone cuts out.

“Look, I can’t talk right now.”

“What do you mean you can’t talk?” Mike barks, and Harvey deserves it, holding onto the scrap that for all his rage (deserved), Mike does still want to talk (he really does).

“Rachel’s in my office looking at me right now,” he explains because if there’s anything that’ll calm Mike’s nerves, it ought to be a reminder of his fiancée, “and she’s gonna think something’s wrong in five seconds, so unless you’ve changed your mind about me not telling her, I gotta go.”

“Harvey, you gotta get the phone from her,” Mike begs, his anger already forgotten.

“Sure, Rick, no problem,” Harvey says loudly.

_Uh, Rick Sorkin.  
_

_Harvey Specter. Nice to meet you._

(I’m so glad we got to go on this journey together.)

Back to the grindstone, Harvey thinks as he puts his phone back in his pocket. As long as it takes.

Next stop: Sean Cahill.

\---

“Sean, what took so long?” Harvey demands, stepping toward him aggressively. It’s not a wise move, considering what he’s asking Cahill to do for him, but it feels good, and Harvey needs that wherever he can get it and this is his office, his turf. They’ll do things his way.

“It took me so long to find out that Frank Gallo’s not going anywhere because he’s got people up in high places who are protecting him,” Cahill retorts, and these ephemeral people in these mystical high places, Harvey will to destroy them all.

Add it to the list.

“Then tell me who they are,” he says. “I’ll put them in the ground.”

“Look, it’s not that simple,” Cahill admits, which is bullshit.

“It is to me.”

“Harvey, you don’t understand.”

How _dare_ you.

“I understand that unless he’s a government informant,” Harvey fumes, “we can get a criminal put back where he belongs.”

Cahill looks at him evenly for a beat, and Harvey hates everything.

“You got to be kidding me.”

“Look,” Cahill dismisses, “I can’t reveal details of a federal investigation.”

“You don’t have to,” Harvey growls, sweeping past him toward the door as his blood begins to simmer under his skin. “You just did.”

“Where are you going?” Cahill calls in a meager effort to slow him.

“I’m telling Mike what the hell’s going on.”

“Stop,” Cahill demands, stepping forward to block Harvey’s path. “Just listen to me. No one can know that this came from me.”

Right, like Cahill’s the only one with skin in the game. He’s not even the most important player, not by a long shot.

Of course, it can’t hurt to keep him in Harvey’s good graces; it’s always wise to keep a tool sharp as long as there might still be some use for it. Plus, with all their history and so forth, he deserves a little bit of a bone.

“No one’s gonna know about it at all except Mike,” he says, and Cahill might not be happy about it, but at least he knows he’s lost.

“Harvey,” Donna cuts in as he storms past, “if you go to that prison now, you’ll never make it back in time for your dinner with Nathan.”

That’s right, the dinner. The dinner with Nathan at Per Se that Donna went to such lengths to secure at the last minute, doing whatever she doesn’t want to tell him about to get it done, the dinner with Nathan who’s better than William Sutter by a hair’s breadth but also an asshole who Harvey didn’t want to deal with in the first place and definitely doesn’t want to talk to right now.

“Donna, I don’t care what you have to do,” he snaps. “Get him a message that I’ll be an hour late, and make sure he says it’s okay.”

“Harvey—”

“Take care of it,” he interrupts. What’s he even paying her that exorbitant salary for if she can’t handle such a simple task? “I’m not leaving Mike alone in there another minute without knowing what’s coming.”

It’s Harvey’s fault that Gallo is out for Mike’s blood, but Mike won’t be blindsided on Harvey’s watch.

The drive to the prison is an hour and a half.

Less if he really guns it.

\---

It’s a safety measure that keeps the glass office doors from slamming, some mechanism in the hinges, but that doesn’t stop Harvey from trying.

What the _fuck_ is Mike thinking? Cahill is offering him a one-way ticket out of Danbury and he’s too goddamn _proud_ to take it? Too _self-righteous?_ Too _dignified?_

God _fucking_ dammit.

He knows the real reason.

Mike is too _good._

And now Cahill’s put a two-day time limit on the deal, as if Mike’s life, Mike’s _value_ can be measured in something as trivial as _days,_ and Mike’s gotten Donna involved to make extra sure Harvey knows he’s not interested in becoming a snitch, and Harvey can’t tell Rachel what’s going on because it would break Mike’s heart and Harvey can’t do that to him, no matter how well-intentioned.

Mike _has_ to take the deal. There’s no feasible way to get an inmate out of federal prison early and he’s being offered one on a _silver platter_ and if he doesn’t take it, he’ll regret it for the rest of his life.

Harvey picks up the telephone receiver and immediately shoves it back into the cradle. Why won’t he think about everything he doesn’t have in there, everything he’s leaving behind? The life he’s worked so hard for, the life he deserves. What about all the people who care for him, the people who are suffering out here while he’s in there, the people whose imaginations are running wild but surely no worse than the reality of whatever torment Gallo is levelling on him.

Not that Mike would tell them what that reality was. He could be strung up by his balls on a nightly basis for all Harvey knows, and he’d never say a word, too determined to protect the people he loves from the knowledge that he’s bearing the brunt of their collective bad deeds, their mutual deception, all for their benefit, their safety and protection.

If Mike only knew how much they were all destroying themselves over him.

The best intentions of good men and all that.

Harvey picks the receiver back up.

He has an idea.

\---

Harvey ought to turn on the radio or something.

What he really ought to do is go back to the office, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of other work to do, and he’s got to be back here in six hours anyway to pick Mike up. In fact, he doesn’t have any other obligations at all tonight, and unless he wants to be accountable to Cahill, there’s no reason for him to return.

He doesn’t really feel like dealing with anyone at the moment.

What are Mike and Rachel doing right now? Talking, maybe; Mike’s probably told her some bullshit about Harvey sneaking him out of Danbury out of the goodness of his heart, some sort of apology for letting him get locked up in the first place. It’s a stupid line; Harvey wants to apologize to Mike until the end of time for getting him tangled in this life-destroying web, but realistically, technically, he did everything in his power to keep Mike out of prison. It was Mike’s decision and he’s done a respectable job of owning it, and Harvey should honor that.

He will. He does.

He’s trying.

Looking into the rearview mirror, Harvey blindly slides his hand into his coat’s inner pocket, fitting two fingers into the hidden seam and carefully extracting the photograph he keeps there. It’s far more worn than it ought to be, considering he’s had it for only a few days.

He doesn’t know when it was taken, exactly. Sometime in the summer, if Mike’s threadbare t-shirt is anything to go by. Not that it matters; Mike’s smiling, is the important part, smiling and laughing and generally looking like he’s having the goddamn time of his life, a life that’s worthy of him.

It was a kindness, on Rachel’s part, giving him a copy. A crisper version sits in a pretty wooden frame on her desk, the colors less worn and the upper right corner less accidentally folded; it’s taken on a more prominent spot recently, he’s noticed, closer to her computer and less hidden behind the lamp.

She looks at it a lot.

“I don’t remember what he’s laughing at,” she’d confided guiltily one afternoon, keeping her eyes on Mike’s as she spoke to Harvey so quietly, in mourning for some past only partially real, partially nostalgic fantasy.

“But this is how I like to think of him.” She smiled up at him then, he remembers, with tears in her eyes, and he felt somehow like an intimate stranger.

“I think this is why I haven’t gone to the prison, because I don’t want to think of him there, in such a dirty, violent place, in his prison uniform, behind bars, with his hair all shaved.”

She laughed at herself, at her delusions.

“I had this sense at first, right when he went in, that if I went to see him right away, they’d tell me it had all been a mistake and I could take him home with me, and that would be the end.”

Harvey watched her, forgetting to ask for that report he’d come in for in the first place.

“It’s silly,” she admitted, “because I know what’s going on whether I see it or not, but this…this will always be the real Mike to me.”

She didn’t know. She still doesn’t.

But Harvey nodded, forgetting to point out that the dark parts of Mike are worth loving, too, that he’s beautiful when he’s happy but also when he’s on fire with his anger, or taking a moment to admit to his sorrow, or his eyes alight with pride as he magically reads through five hundreds pages in a single hour and finds every stupid mistake.

Rachel looked back down at the photo, stroking the edge of the frame before she replaced it beside her laptop. Then, in a fit of inspiration, only a little haltingly:

“Do you want a copy?”

Now Harvey smiles at the photograph, memorizing it the same way he does every time he takes it out of his coat pocket, every time he looks down at it, every time he remembers how much all of Mike is beautiful, the happy parts and everything else, too.

Tucking it back into his coat, he leans back in his seat and looks out the windshield at the street lined with parked cars, the traffic signs and the fire hydrants and the stoplights. The café on the corner, the pedestrians milling about in the dark.

He hopes Mike is having the goddamn time of his life.

\---

The problem with successes in a terrible case like this is that every one makes him feel invincible.

The problem with prison cases is that the bar for successes is set ridiculously low.

Mike gets along with his cellmate? Awesome. Mike is going to coast through his sentence and everything is going to be fine.

Sorry, no; actually, Frank Gallo has managed to weasel his way into Danbury and is out for Mike’s head in some cowardly effort to attack Harvey by proxy.

Cahill agrees to get Mike out early if he rats on his real cellmate? Perfect. Mike’s only known the guy a couple of days and he’ll jump at the chance to get back to Rachel, back to his real life.

Sorry, no; Mike’s the sort of guy to form loyalties quickly and has already decided to stand by Kevin, even though he doesn’t know the first thing about him or his story, and as a bonus, Cahill’s deal is only good for two more days.

Kevin is protecting Mike from Gallo? Great. The kid could use a friend in there.

Sorry; no.

William fucking Sutter.

Clenching his fists in a meager effort to stop them trembling too violently, Harvey storms down the hall and sweeps into Louis’s office, demands already falling into the air between them before he even registers that Louis is busy doing—something, who gives a fuck, this is _vital,_ this is for _Mike._

“Not now, Harvey,” Louis greets him. “I’m in the middle of something important.”

You don’t know the meaning of the word.

“Whatever it is, it’s not as important as this,” Harvey says, thrusting the notice into Louis’s scowling face.

“What is this?”

“It’s notice to suspend William Sutter’s trading license,” Harvey snaps. “The question is, what can be done about it?”

Louis shakes his head and Harvey knows that he’s ready to dismiss the matter outright, ready to brush it off as just another instance of Harvey acting like he’s better than all the rest of them.

“Nothing can be done about it.”

“What do you mean, nothing can be done about it?” Harvey growls. “You’re supposed to be the financial wizard.” What’s the point of keeping Louis around if he can’t even take care of this simple thing when he really needs to, when it’s really important?

“I am,” Louis agrees, “and I’m telling you that this kind of thing is at the SEC’s discretion. They have unlimited power to suspend trading licenses up to ninety days.”

Harvey knew it. He knew this was a fishing expedition, he knew it was a longshot when he decided to ask for Louis’s help, but somehow, some way…

“Goddamn it.”

“It’s only ninety days,” Louis reminds him bewilderedly, and Harvey glares at him as though this is all his fault.

“Ninety days gets me fired.”

“Well, it’s gonna be okay, Harvey,” Louis tries to reassure him. He’s beginning to sense that something’s different about this one; good. Maybe now he’ll take it seriously.

“I mean, I know things have been rough around here, but business is picking up.”

As if the firm is what’s important right now.

“This isn’t about business, Louis,” Harvey confides, and if he’s going for it, then he’s going for it:

“It’s about Mike.”

Louis’s mouth opens a little, his buck teeth showing the way they always do, but—no, Harvey shouldn’t make fun. Not right now. Louis’s eyes are wide and curious, the opposite of his usual narrowed and suspicious, and Harvey should be grateful, grateful.

“What are you not telling me, Harvey?” Louis asks carefully, just glimpsing the landmines he’s beginning to skirt.

Harvey shakes his head.

“I’m not gonna tell you the details, because I’m not gonna put you at risk,” because if I lose your help right now I don’t know what I’ll do, “but I have a chance to get Mike out early, and if I lose this motion, it’s over.”

And it can’t be over. It can’t.

Pursing his lips, puffing his chest up, reminding them both that yeah, you bet he’s the fucking financial wizard, Louis nods just enough that Harvey knows he agrees.

“Well, then I’ll figure out a way to get it done.”

Every little bit helps.

“Thank you, Louis.”

Now we’re invincible.

\---

We’re far from invincible.

Taking on that bastard Nathan Burns was supposed to _prevent_ Harvey from having to defend William Sutter, not… _ensure_ it. But now he needs not only to defend Sutter but somehow get on his good side, too? Harvey’s specialty is making thinly veiled threats and double-speaking his clients into doing what he wants; being friends with them, making nice is Mike’s job.

And why can’t Cahill just requisition Sutter’s fucking algorithm? Judge Donnelly is always up for putting away RICO offenders, liable to give good attorneys as much leeway as she can manage under the letter of the law. She’d let him slide with a well-crafted “reasonable suspicion” argument, which he’d have no problem pulling out of his ass. Or Judge Beck, he’s a reasonable guy; hell, even Wyler would side with Cahill on this one.

But no, of course Cahill doesn’t have time for that, or doesn’t feel like helping Mike out, or wants to dangle his superiority over Harvey’s head for no goddamn reason other than his own self-satisfaction, or who knows what the fuck else.

Harvey wishes he could think of some other recourse. Wishes he had the resources left for such a luxury.

Maybe if he’s ridiculously, stupidly lucky, when all of this is said and done and Mike is back safe where he belongs, it won’t occur to Louis how much Harvey owes him.

“Louis,” he proclaims as he bursts into his office, “whatever you're doing, I need you to put it down.”

“Not now, Harvey,” Louis dismisses out of hand. “I'm planning the ultimate date for the love of my life.”

Well isn't that funny.

“This is for Mike.”

The effect is immediate; Louis drops the papers in his hand on his desk and turns to Harvey with a set determination that confirms he’s in this for the long haul.

“All right,” he says, “what do you need me to do?”

Harvey wonders when he became so transparent.

\---

Corporate law doesn’t offer many opportunities to attend parole hearings.

In fact, Harvey’s hasn’t attended one since his days at the District Attorney’s office, and even then it was always on the prosecuting side (except for once when he was in the gallery, but that was just morbid curiosity on account of the defendant being a serial killer, that doesn’t count). His time at the DA’s was marked in wins and losses, anyway; the parole process was just busywork, attended to as part of the job description. Whether the prisoners were actually paroled or not was an irrelevant side effect.

Stepping into the “courtroom” at Danbury, though. That’s a hell of a thing.

The room, which might as well be a repurposed supply closet, is a concrete box painted with white plaster and illuminated under cheap blue fluorescents, furnished with those black plastic and metal stacking chairs and aluminum tables that need to be stuck two together to accommodate all three of the parole board commissioners in attendance. There’s a black file cabinet in the corner with some plastic Kinko’s-bound “book” left on it, the front cover folded back as though someone was locked in and started reading the first thing they could get their hands on to pass the time, dropping it as soon as something, anything started happening.

This place is an embarrassment to the practice of law and it’s an embarrassment to the character of Michael James Ross.

After all the crazy shit they’ve done to get to this point, the life-consuming insanity of the last few weeks, it’s total bullshit that this mockery of a courtroom—this parody of Harvey’s venue, of _their_ venue—should be where everything comes to a head.

It’s a disgrace.

Yeah, well.

“You better be convincing out there.”

Harvey thins his lips as his stomach turns, and he sticks his hands in his pockets and digs in his heels to keep from kicking Gallo right in the shin.

“Gallo,” he mutters, “I’m about to sell my soul to make us even, so sit down, shut up, and make sure that after today, I never see your face again.”

Even then would be too soon.

“Mr. Specter,” the parole board chairman announces as Gallo sits and Harvey reaches down to button his suit jacket. “Are you ready to be sworn in?”

Showtime.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the board,” Cameron Dennis announces out of nowhere, strolling up from the back of the room with his briefcase in hand and Mike trailing along behind him. “Before Mr. Specter testifies, I’d like to present Michael Ross as a witness on behalf of the state.”

“Mr. Chairman,” Harvey protests, trying to sound as aghast as possible, “this hearing was called so that I could—”

“You’ll get your chance, Mr. Specter,” the chairman waves him off. Mike sits in what’s passing for some kind of witness chair, looking like he hasn’t slept in about a year, and the chairman frowns a little. “I’d like to hear what the young man has to say.”

Perfect.

“I can have him sworn in,” the chairman offers, but Dennis doesn’t even look up as he folds his hands in front of his chest.

“That won’t be necessary. Mr. Ross,” he recites, lowering his clasped hands to his waist, “you are an inmate here at Danbury, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Mike replies curtly, “I’m serving a two-year sentence for practicing law without a license.”

“And what firm did you work at?”

Mike looks blankly at Harvey and it’s hard not to feel like he’s blaming him for everything.

“I worked for Mr. Specter,” he says, pointing weakly in Harvey’s direction.

It’s fine. It’s all fine.

It’s all according to script.

Does Dennis have to be so goddamn _smug_ about it?

“On my first night here,” Mike divulges, “Mr. Gallo bribed a guard so that he could get into my cell, and then he pretended to be my roommate.”

The commissioners exchange baffled looks, but honestly, what did they expect? The security at this place is pathetic, the guards are barely vetted. Harvey is more surprised by those of them _not_ taking bribes from someone, considering how many white collar douchebags in here are champing at the bit for special dispensation.

“And after getting me to trust him,” Mike goes on, “he told me that he had been trying to get revenge on Harvey Specter since the day he’d been put away.”

Harvey looks down contritely. He would’ve preferred not to have to hear that part out loud again; he knows it to be true, that’s enough.

“Then he told me that now he was gonna get revenge on Harvey by coming after me.”

In his peripheral, Harvey spies Gallo setting his shoulders back, his considerable bicep muscles flexing. Yeah, that’s right, you fucker; that’s my boy, and he can stand up to you just as much as I can. Just as strong.

“Was it clear to you what he meant by ‘coming after you’?” Dennis asks, even though the answer is obvious to all of them.

“He said he would kill me,” Mike confirms, looking challengingly at Gallo. “In fact, he tried to shiv me the second night, but a guard stopped him.”

“Just one more question,” Dennis wraps up his barrage. “Was Mr. Specter aware of these threats?”

He had to ask it. Had to.

Harvey hates him for everything he’s ever done.

“Of course he was.” Mike looks evenly at Harvey, and Harvey tenses his jaw muscles.

He hates himself for all the ways he’s failed.

“Why else do you think he’s been trying to get Gallo parole?”

_Because it’s his fault I’m in here in the first place and he can’t get me out but this is the next best thing._

_Because it’s his fault that psycho wasn’t locked up in a little box underground with no windows and the door sealed shut._

_Because he’s trying to make himself feel better by doing me a favor.  
_

_Because he thinks it’ll help._

Harvey deserves ten thousand times the lashing Mike’s laying on him.

This is an act, all an act.

They’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It will.

Fine.

Dennis strolls back to his table and picks up his briefcase, stashing papers in there that Harvey didn’t even notice him removing in the first place.

Mission accomplished.

“Thank you, Mr. Ross,” the chairman says, still sounding a little shell-shocked (as if he has any right, the moron). “Mr. Specter, are you prepared to refute this testimony under oath?”

Harvey sighs through his pursed lips. “No, Your Honor,” he concedes. “I’m not.”

The chairman pauses a moment, looking around the room as if expecting someone, anyone, to raise an objection to…something.

“We’ll take a five-minute recess,” he says, and Harvey leans a bit to the left, toward the aisle.

“You did this,” Gallo hisses furiously, turning to Harvey with his fists clenched tight. “You were in on it with him the whole time.”

“You’re right,” Harvey mutters as he imagines grabbing Gallo by the throat and squeezing with all his might. “I did. So you come after me, not him.”

“I’m coming after both of you,” Gallo refutes, exactly as Harvey would expect, “but I’m coming after him sooner. Hey,” he snaps then, standing abruptly when Mike walks past, “you can’t hide from me.”

“Oh, I don’t need to hide from you,” Mike smirks, “‘cause it turns out I’m getting out today. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

What did I tell you, you son of a bitch.

Dennis walks by and exchanges a cool glance with Harvey; “We’re even,” it says. “Don’t even think about asking me for anything else,” it warns.

Fine.

Here’s to our paths never crossing again.

\---

The day couldn’t be more ideal if Harvey had scripted it himself.

A gentle breeze blows in exactly the right direction to cut the stench of gasoline off the nearby highway that Mike’s been inhaling for weeks; the temperature isn’t as bitterly cold as it’s been recently, more of the friendly chill that might be described as “crisp,” and the sun shines bright in the cloudless sky as Harvey pulls into Danbury’s reasonably crowded parking lot.

Most of the cars probably belong to employees. There’s no one lingering outside, as far as he can see. No visitors, no chauffeurs.

Harvey checks his watch. Quarter past; Mike is due out at ten thirty.

Exactly as planned.

After all the hours, the days and weeks spent laboring over Mike’s release, agonizing over his prison term, calling in favor after favor and conjuring ragged solutions out of thin air, fifteen minutes is barely an instant.

What will Mike say first? Will he Harvey ask about the firm? Will he thank him for getting him out early, or congratulate him? Will he shake his hand, or pat him on the shoulder, or hug him?

Will he flinch away from touch?

Blame Harvey for his imprisonment?

Hate him for bringing Rachel to this place?

Fifteen minutes have brusquely dropped down to five, every passing second transformed into a slender needle piercing his senses, setting them on fire as the ground begins to quake beneath him and the sky begins to fall and this is a _bad_ idea, a bad, bad, _bad_ idea.

Now, wait. Hold on just a goddamn second.

Mike might not want to be touched, but that’s not uncommon for people just released from prison, especially prison where some sonofabitch made it his mission to paint a dayglo target on their back and then spent all his time pointing right at it. And Harvey might blame himself for Mike’s imprisonment, but they’ve had that conversation enough times for him to know that _Mike_ doesn’t blame him, not for any of it, even the things he should.

As for Rachel…

To be fair, it’s not _purely_ egoism that kept him from letting her greet him first.

She’s never actually seen Mike in this context; the only time she visited Danbury (the _only_ time), she was turned away at the door, never permitted beyond the registration desk in the visitors’ waiting area. Mike didn’t even know until much later that she’d made the trip at all. They’ve talked on the phone a few times, but as far as Harvey knows, most of the reassurances offered between them were from Mike to Rachel, which hardly seems fair.

Harvey isn’t above acknowledging that he wants a moment just for the two of them before reality sets back in.

In the privacy of his own mind, he can admit that he’s mostly being selfish.

He hopes Mike will be able to forgive him someday, when they’ve managed to come to terms with all of this.

For now, though, standing only a few feet back from the gated entrance, Harvey hears the loud click of the prison doors opening; he blinks away his muddled thoughts and Mike is here, Mike is here, with a cocky little smirk on his face and a bit of a swagger in his step, his chest puffed up with a confidence Harvey isn’t sure he feels just yet but he’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Stopping just short of right into Harvey’s personal space, Mike squints against the sunlight shining in his eyes.

“Did it work?” he asks, even though he knows the answer.

Harvey smirks.

“It worked.”

Mike laughs, and Harvey’s heart lightens.

“We did it.”

“We did,” Harvey agrees. ~~~~

We were hurt, and we were damaged, and we were vulnerable, and we fought like hell to keep our heads above the water for more than a second at a time, to gulp down just enough air to keep us alive before we threw ourselves back under.

And we did it.

It’s in his eyes and all over his face that Mike doesn’t quite believe it, scanning the horizon as though he’s got to take it all in before he wakes up to find himself strapped down to a cot in the hole, waiting out his sentence before emerging into a world he no longer knows and a life he’s never had to live. Harvey doesn’t even think to tamp down on his own wide smile as he watches Mike gradually accept that this is it, this is the real deal. No more lies, no more half-truths, no more self-delusions.

We did it.

It’s done.

Now. Now, we’re invincible.

Alright.

Harvey turns back to the lot. It was a good moment while it lasted.

“Oh,” he says over his shoulder as Mike begins to follow him to the car. “One more thing.”

Mike raises his eyebrows and halts his step.

All for you, Mike.

“Someone couldn’t wait for you to get home.”

Anything for you.

\---

Things are going well.

Mike got to take his last jab at Gallo and escape without any lasting damage; he and Rachel got their little couple’s reunion with the dramatic touch of her surprise appearance at the prison; Mike’s first night as a free man was spent at home with the woman he loves, reminding himself that everything really is back to normal and if he wants to relax and let his guard down for a second, that’s just fine.

Now, tonight, Harvey gets his moment proper, the two of them alone together, and he’s set it up pretty damn well, if he does say so himself. This is a nice restaurant, really more of a lounge, softly lit and populated enough to give them an excuse not to hear each other if things get too deep but not so raucous that they can’t carry on a decent conversation if they’d like. More importantly, they have a whole booth to themselves, and even more importantly, there’s a decent selection of scotch on the menu; varied in quality, granted, but the higher-cost end of the spectrum boasts a fine couple of specimens.

The server, who has no way of knowing how important this celebration is, placed the array on the table in no particular order, sort of a semi-circle; feeling fidgety, Harvey takes it upon himself to arrange them in two neat rows of four. He forgets which scotch is which.

Mike won’t mind.

The darkest one is probably the smoothest; Harvey slides it to the far end of one of the rows.

Leaning against the leather cushioning at his back, Harvey puts his hand over his breast pocket to feel the letter concealed inside his jacket.

This, all of this, is for the two of them.

This is for Mike.

After awhile, not too long, Mike saunters up from behind Harvey, nearing the table with a smirk on his face as he eyes the liquor buffet.

“Whoa,” he muses, “how many people are joining us?”

Harvey tips his tumbler toward the two rows. “Wasn’t sure which scotch you’d want, so I went ahead and ordered them all.”

“What if I’m in the mood for a beer?” Mike challenges.

Harvey smirks. “You just got out of prison. You’re not in the mood for a beer.”

“Yeah,” Mike admits in that rushed tone that means his objection was only a token, “you’re right.”

Harvey raises his drink as Mike sits and makes his selection (the dark one at the end of the row). “Welcome home.”

It goes down even smoother the second time around.

“Oh,” Mike marvels, looking admiringly down at the scotch in his hand, “damn that tastes good.”

“That’s not even the best thing I have for you,” Harvey says, handing the letter over before Mike has a chance to really appreciate the flavor. Before Harvey loses his nerve.

Mike takes it curiously, his brow furrowing as he reads.

“It’s an offer letter.”

Putting on his cockiest smile, Harvey gestures towards the paper, hoping Mike doesn’t see the nerves thrumming under his skin. “Take a look at the number.”

Mike doesn’t look nearly as ecstatic as Harvey was expecting. Come to think of it, he doesn’t even look particularly _happy._

It’s enough, isn’t it? Enough to show Mike what he’s worth to the firm? To Harvey? (As if that could be put into numbers, or words, but, well, he has to do _something._ )

“This is the same money I made as a junior partner,” Mike murmurs.

“Because you are a junior partner,” Harvey declares. “The best there is. And we need you.”

“I just got out of prison?” Mike reminds him, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m not trying to go back.”

“You’re not going back,” Harvey says proudly, “because even though you’ll be acting as a lawyer, your title’s gonna be ‘consultant.’”

See, Mike? I fixed it. An impossible problem, and I fixed it.

Mike sighs and looks off to the side, at the other tables full of happy chattering groups mindlessly noshing away on their elaborate, overpriced dinners, gossiping about their vapid lives.

“Look,” he says haltingly, “Harvey, I appreciate the gesture, but everyone left that firm because of me. I’m not gonna do that to you again.”

“Mike—”

“No, listen to me,” Mike cuts him off. “You’ve done enough, you don’t have to do this for me.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way at all.

Harvey puts his hands in his lap and looks down at his half-drunk scotch.

“I’m not doing this for you,” he admits. “I’m doing it for me.”

Make this into a pill, make it easier to swallow.

“I miss working with you.”

Mike directs his reluctant answer to the letter as he holds it out for Harvey to take back.

“I miss working with you, too.”

It sounds like a platitude, like a weary effort to move the conversation along to its conclusion without making any real commitments, and Harvey’s smile thins.

“Then do me a favor,” he requests. “Just think about it.” Mike shakes his head a little and Harvey puts his hands up. “If the answer’s still no in a few days, I won’t bring it up again.”

Mike’s lips part, his eyes softening; that wasn’t what he was expecting, that’s for sure.

See, Mike? I’m learning. You’re teaching me, and I’m learning.

He takes his time lowering the letter back to the table, nodding down at his scotch and sliding his finger along the rim of the glass.

“Thanks, Harvey.”

Harvey nods and takes another sip.

“So how does it feel?” he asks eventually ( _reset_ ). Mike quirks his eyebrows and Harvey waves at their surroundings. “Being a free man?”

Mike smirks, looking out the windows along the wall to his left. “Unreal.”

That seems to be all he has to say about that. Harvey nods, tapping the table.

“How was your first night out?”

He’s expecting one of Mike’s wide smiles, maybe a coy grin, maybe a little “I don’t kiss and tell.” He and Rachel were pretty happy to reunite yesterday; they must’ve really gone to town once they finally got home, both their minds finally at ease.

Instead, Mike lowers his gaze to the tabletop, pursing his lips and hunching his shoulders as he resumes tracing the rim of his tumbler.

“Mike?”

Harvey isn’t certain, but he thinks he hears Mike chuckle under his breath.

“Not exactly everything I’d imagined,” he admits.

One of the finer skills Harvey’s picked up over his years dragging information out of unwilling conversationalists is recognizing when silence is a greater motivator than persistent questioning.

Mike doesn’t seem to mind the wait.

“She made me dinner,” he says eventually, straightening his back but keeping his gaze lowered. “This Korean barbecued beef thing she got off the Internet with all these scallions on top, and some like, pear or something, all fancy, and she was so proud of it and she seemed so happy with herself that she was making my first night back really special, and…”

Harvey bites his tongue, just enough to keep from making a flippant interjection, and Mike shakes his head.

“It was good. I mean, it wasn’t restaurant quality but it was, you know, good, but we sit down at the table and we’ve got this nice meal and this nice wine and everything’s all just so… _perfect,_ ” Mike spits the word out like a swear, “and everything was all, by the book, and she starts telling me all about Leonard Bailey, and she’s so excited and so proud of herself and I feel like I should be too but all I can think is, I just got out of prison, I was fighting for my life every second of every day, I thought I was gonna be in there for two years, if I could last that long, before you, _somehow,_ you created this—miracle situation, Harvey, you saved my life, and she wants to talk about Leonard _fucking_ Bailey.”

Harvey hadn’t wanted to bring her.

God dammit, Mike, I thought it was what you wanted. You deserve to have something nice, and that was supposed to be it, and wasn’t it good for a little while? Didn’t it make you happy?

(I really fucked it up this time.)

“So we did,” Mike goes on, “for awhile, because she’d spent all this time on this dinner, and she’s been working hard on this case, and I get it, you know, I get that she wanted to tell somebody who hasn’t been along for the ride, so she could start from scratch and tell her side of the story without anyone pointing out that they remember it differently, or they already know, or whatever.”

Then he smiles to himself, and Harvey rests his elbows on the table.

“And before she gets to the end of it, I’m pretty sure, she gets this expression on her face like she’s waiting for me to say something, to congratulate her or whatever, and she asks me how the food is. And I said ‘Best thing I’ve had in weeks.’”

His laugh is small and sardonic, and none of this is funny.

“And I mean I know it might not’ve been the _nicest_ compliment, but it’s not like it wasn’t true, and she just says, ‘Oh,’ like that, all quiet and—you know what, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if she was embarrassed or _offended._ ”

“Or both,” Harvey offers, and Mike nods.

“Yeah.”

Harvey looks down at his scotch, which still has another sip or two left.

Mike has one empty tumbler on the table by his elbow and a full one in his hand, more props to keep him busy than anything else.

(Dear Mike: Please accept my most humble apology.)

“So we finish dinner,” Mike picks up after a minute, “and I start to take my plate into the kitchen, and she comes up behind me and starts…touching me, you know, putting her hands on my shoulders, kind of hugging me, and she’s whispering in my ear about a present for coming back to her, and all I can think is, ‘Why are we doing this?’” He laughs again, sounding almost like he’s just clearing his throat, and slides the full glass of scotch across the table to his other hand. “And I get the, the impulse, I get the expectation and everything, but I mean _I’m_ the one who just got out of prison, how about asking me what _I_ want to do, or what _I_ want to talk about?”

This time, when he falls silent, Harvey doesn’t hear the words he wants to say, and he doesn’t hear the baited breath of a man gearing himself up for another round; this time, he hears the loneliness, the isolation, the little boy who’s finally managed to pour his heart out to himself and generously allowed Harvey to sit on the sidelines to bear witness out of the kindness of his heart, out of love and trust and respect.

Harvey leans back in his chair and doesn’t begrudge Mike for looking away.

There’s really only one way to answer that.

“What do you want, Mike?”

“Harvey.”

“I mean it,” Harvey says. “And I’m not talking about tomorrow, or next week, or for the rest of your life, I mean right now, for tonight, what do you want? Because if I can get it for you, Mike, I will.”

Trying to hide his grin, Mike looks back out the windows; this is insane, this is ridiculous. This is a stupid offer and Harvey doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.

Like hell he doesn’t.

“So right now, what do you want?”

Mike takes a minute to think about it.

Good for him.

“I want to go with you back to your place,” he says, looking at Harvey with a challenge in his eyes (somewhat self-directed), “where we can sit in private, you and me, and I want to talk until I’m ready to stop talking.”

About prison.

About fraud.

About everything.

Harvey claps his hands down on the edge of the table.

“You got it.”

Standing, he begins to button his jacket, and Mike looks nervously at the untouched scotch still laid out before him.

“Uh…”

Harvey shakes his head. “Already taken care of.” Nodding toward the doors, he fishes a coat check tag out of his pocket. “Come on.”

Mike does.

Ray drives them to Harvey’s place without fanfare, and Harvey’s subtle in taking out the key to his private elevator. The doorman doesn’t pay them any mind, but Mike nods at him anyway, just to be polite.

“So,” Harvey says when the elevator door opens, shedding his suit jacket and going to hang it in the hall closet. “What’s on your mind?”

Mike sits in the leather chair closest to the elevator. “You sure about this?”

“Mike,” Harvey intones as he makes his way back to sit in the adjacent chair. “This is the last time I’m gonna repeat myself.”

Their gazes lock for a moment until Mike raises his eyebrows goadingly, and Harvey clasps his hands in his lap.

“Whatever you need? It’s yours.”

Mike looks away with a grin. “Not that Harvey Specter ever cares about anyone.”

Harvey bites back a smile of his own. “You really gonna make me say it?”

“No.”

“You’re not just anyone.”

It doesn’t make Mike’s grin widen like he thought it would. Instead he bites his lower lip and closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between his right thumb and the first knuckle of his index finger and curling his other three fingers into a loose fist; Harvey’s mouth falls open a little, but it’s Mike’s turn now and he won’t interrupt.

The silence hangs heavy between them for awhile before Mike can bring himself to begin.

“You were right,” he says thinly. “I was weak. I was so fucking weak. I was in prison, Harvey, federal prison; I should’ve known better than to trust the first guy I met just because he told me I could.”

Dropping his hand, he opens his eyes even as he turns his face away toward the patio, the great outdoors.

“But I thought it would be fine, I thought, it can’t be as bad as everyone says; I thought, I’m a smart guy, I grew up making my own way, I can handle a bunch of minimum security losers for a little while. I thought, I won’t let any of them trick me, I’ll be able to see it coming, I— Somehow, I’ll know. I’ll be able to tell.”

Harvey rubs his hand across his mouth and drapes his arm across the back of his chair.

This time, when Mike laughs, it’s a cross between a snuffle and a wet cough; it sounds like it hurts a little.

“And I didn’t,” he says, standing abruptly, “and I couldn’t, and then you tried to pull me out of the hole I’d dug for myself but I couldn’t show them I was weak, Harvey, I couldn’t be the pathetic kid off the street who’s been lying to himself that he’ll get off this ride, this fucking train speeding on to hell, to me getting everything I deserve for everything I’ve done, all the people I’ve put in danger, and for all the trouble I’ve caused.”

Can’t you see that you aren’t?

(Can’t you see what I see?)

“And now I’m out,” Mike exclaims, spreading his arms wide and turning back just enough to glare at Harvey, “and my record’s clean, and everything’s all better and I just need to get back to my life like none of it ever happened!”

Oh, Mike.

Pressing his lips together, Harvey settles forward over his lap, his clasped hands dropping between his knees as he looks up at Mike looming over him. Mike blinks a few times and his eyes redden at the corners.

“It happened,” Harvey says softly.

Turning on his heel, Mike stalks a few steps away, knotting his hands behind his neck.

It takes a moment for Harvey to notice. When he does, he thinks he shouldn’t be so surprised.

Mike’s bit his lower lip again, his eyes closed tight and his hands pressed together in front of his mouth. After a few seconds of uncertainty, Harvey stands, stepping up behind him and waiting for a clue, a hint, an invitation; Mike’s shoulders begin to tremble, and Harvey lays his arm across them as Mike leans into him.

He isn’t sure how much time passes before Mike’s tears stop falling, how much longer after that his back stops heaving, but even then, Mike doesn’t move away, so Harvey doesn’t, either.

“Oh, god,” Mike mumbles, pressing his hands to his eyes. “This is such a fucking mess.”

Moving closer, instead of away like he probably should, Harvey squeezes the back of Mike’s neck. “Hey,” he says. “I’m glad you’re here. And I’m proud of you,” he continues impulsively. “You did good.”

Mike makes a stuffy coughing sound and shakes his head; Harvey pats him on the shoulder and drops his hands away.

“I shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Mike bites out. “I should’ve finished the trial, I shouldn’t’ve let Gibbs get to me. Harvey, I should’ve listened to you.”

“Don’t do that,” Harvey counters. “Mike, listen to me, don’t do this to yourself.”

“But—”

“What did I just say?” he interrupts, putting his hands back on Mike’s shoulders and pulling them face-to-face. “Look, Mike, Gibbs got to all of us. It’s her fault all this came down the way it did, her and her goddamn obsession with polishing off every report of white collar bureaucratic bullshit on her docket that she thinks she can throw away without a fight.”

“Harvey—”

“And it’s my fault we went to trial in the first place,” he rambles, “because I couldn’t get one up on her fast enough, I couldn’t _close_ her, and you never should’ve had to deal with that, you never should’ve been put in that position, but you were, and it’s my fault, and you did the best you could, Mike, you did better than anyone had _any_ right to ask of you!”

“ _Harvey!_ ”

Caught up short, Harvey finds himself breathing so hard it might be called panting, his eyes held wide and beginning to twitch with the effort of it.

Whatever Mike was expecting, he wasn’t expecting all of that.

Slowly, as though he fears that Harvey is about to strangle him, or run away, Mike places his hands on Harvey’s, clenched tight around his shoulders. Harvey’s gaze darts down and he makes an effort to soften his manic expression (at least a little).

“It’s… Thank you,” Mike ventures. “But it’s not your fault.”

Shaking his head, Harvey withdraws his hands from Mike’s gentle hold and steps away.

“I’m supposed to be helping _you_ feel better,” he says sardonically.

Mike makes a skeptical sort of “heh” noise. “That’s not gonna happen if I know you’re trying to keep a lid on whatever that was,” he notes, still with a bit of a croak in his voice that makes Harvey scowl.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Like hell I won’t.”

Like hell.

This is one hell of a curse we’ve got strung up between us.

“Mike,” Harvey implores. “Don’t. Okay, just…don’t.”

Don’t make me say it.

Don’t make me tell you about all I’ve suffered through.

Harvey watches helplessly as Mike laces his fingers together behind his head and lowers his gaze to the floor, scuffing his heel along the hardwood.

“You were worried about me, huh,” he asks rhetorically.

Harvey sighs.

“Of course I was.”

Mike makes a clicking noise with his tongue and looks up from under his lashes.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

It doesn’t seem like he’s being coy; anyway, Harvey has no intention of denying Mike anything, especially after his selfish outburst.

“Of course.”

Taking a minute to strengthen his resolve, Mike raises his head properly and looks Harvey right in the eye.

“It’s awful trying to sleep in prison,” he says. “However loud you think it is when you’re up there for a visit, locked away in that meeting room, it’s a million times worse when you’re out on the floor.”

Mike stops talking then, but that can’t be it, that can’t be all of it; sure enough, a bit later and without prompting, he sighs and folds his arms across his chest.

“And after that first night with Gallo, I never knew who was gonna sneak into my cell, try to stab me in the dark, murder me while I slept, but you know what got me through it? Every night, before I went to bed?” Mike shifts his weight from side to side. “Every night, I reminded myself that you were out there working on my case, doing whatever you could to get me out. I might be stuck in the cage, doing whatever I have to do to survive, but Harvey Specter is out there fighting the good fight, and if I can just hang on a little longer, everything’s going to be alright.”

Harvey puts his hands in his pockets to keep from wringing them.

A secret. That was a secret.

A secret that it wasn’t the intermittent phone calls with Rachel, or that one illicit visit, that got him through those hellish few weeks. It wasn’t Kevin’s companionship; it wasn’t finding dirt on Gallo; it wasn’t any of Cahill’s propositions, or the Hail Mary with Dennis.

None of that.

It wasn’t the deals Harvey made, or the wins he scored, or the favors he called in.

It was that he _tried._

That he never _stopped_ trying, and Mike never stopped believing in him.

Knew there was never any reason to.

(Damn right there wasn’t.)

“There’s nothing in the world that could’ve stood in my way,” he swears.

Mike smiles, and Harvey makes an effort to return the favor.

“Alright?” he asks, and Mike nods, moving back to stand behind the leather armchair and running his hand along the backrest.

“Yeah,” he says firmly. “Yeah, alright.”

Harvey nods back; it’s a feeble gesture, but it gets the point across.

“Alright.”

“Kiss me.”

What did you just say?

Harvey would ask, or something like it, if he wasn’t so take aback, so utterly stunned. Mike watches him steadily, unaccusatory but unapologetic, and Harvey makes a point to be aware of the floor underneath his feet.

Finally Mike looks away, though it’s not exactly shame in his bearing, or his expression; Harvey would draw closer, but he seems to have forgotten how to move.

“You don’t have to,” Mike assures him. “I just thought…you know.”

What you did, I thought you did it out of love.

What I need, I thought you were the right person to give it to me.

What we’ve been through, I thought it was about time we come clean to ourselves.

Yes, and yes, and yes.

Harvey reaches out then, cradling Mike’s cheek in his hand and stepping closer as he angles his face forward.

“You sure?” he asks, because he has to, and Mike nods against his palm.

“Yeah.”

(Well, you did say you’d do anything.)

They lean in together—you go this way, I’ll go that—and meet tenderly in the middle, more than a superficial press of their lips but miles away from the frantic urgency, the veritable consumption usually accompanying something so long-awaited (and this is, don’t deny it). Mike raises his hand to cover Harvey’s and Harvey watches his eyes fall shut, trying to recall the last time he felt so wonderfully and wildly alive.

The feeling lingers as Mike pulls back just enough to separate them, smiling softly and opening his eyes, blinking and then looking up into Harvey’s.

“Thanks,” he ventures, swaying on his feet a bit.

Harvey rubs his thumb over the arch of Mike’s cheekbone.

“Listen to me, Mike.”

Mike nods, and Harvey brings his other hand up to rest on the side of Mike’s neck.

“You’re not weak.”

Mike ducks his head. It’s hard to tell if he believes what Harvey’s saying; honestly, Harvey would be shocked if things were so easy.

“I love you,” Mike mumbles into his chest.

Well. That was fast.

(Well; not really.)

Bending his knees until he can look Mike in the eye, more or less, Harvey rubs his thumb over his cheekbone again. “Feeling better?”

“Little bit,” Mike quips. Harvey swats him on the side of his head and Mike grins.

It would be nice to let the moment draw out longer, but one of them ought to be rational about this.

“If we’re doing this,” Harvey warns, pulling his hands back, “then we’re doing it.”

(Are you sure about me?)

Mike doesn’t do him the dishonor of pretending not to understand.

“No backing out,” he murmurs. Then, with no room for doubt:

“Harvey, you said tonight was all about what I wanted, right?”

Harvey nods, and Mike shakes his head slightly.

“I promise you, I’ve wanted this for as long as I can remember.”

(I promise you.)

“You know you can do a lot better, right?”

It’s not that he doesn’t mean it; more that he has to put it out there even though he knows Mike won’t believe him, or won’t care. Sure enough, Mike laughs tersely, looking over his shoulder toward the windows again and bracing his hands on his hips.

“False modesty isn’t a great look on you,” he remarks. Harvey smiles wide, his eyes crinkling; the modesty isn’t all false, but Mike doesn’t need to hear that right now.

“I can’t remember the last time anyone accused me of being modest,” he says, and Mike takes another second or two to smile broadly before he lets it fade away and places his hand at the crook of Harvey’s neck.

“Look,” he confides, “I know this isn’t gonna be perfect. Okay? I’m not perfect. I—I know you’re not perfect. I don’t want you to be.” He slides his hand down to cover Harvey’s heart, and Harvey baits his breath.

“I want you to be the guy who pushes too hard,” Mike says, “the guy who won’t admit he’s beaten because there’s always another way out, and when there isn’t, he’ll _make_ one. I want—I want you to be the guy who doesn’t care about anything until he _does,_ because god, Harvey, when you care about something, you care so much, and you’ll do _anything_ for the people you love, and all of that, I love all of that about you. I love that you make me a better person, you make me want to be better, to do better, all the time, with everything I do, that you’re the best goddamn mentor I could ever ask for and you’ve given me a teacher, and a friend, and a confidant, and someone I would never want to go back to not knowing because you make my life better just by being part of it.”

“Mike.”

Blinking a couple of times, Mike seems to come out of a daze, to remember that this isn’t just happening inside his head, inside his dreams. Harvey puts his hands on Mike’s biceps and looks into his eyes as seriously as he can manage.

“Mike, I think I’d like to kiss you again.”

Fleetingly bewildered, Mike recovers to return Harvey’s stoic expression with a firm nod.

“I think I’d like that very much.”

After a moment’s pause, they more or less simultaneously lose the battle to keep their laughter in check and the kiss is all kinds of awkward, teeth clicking together and noses not quite out of each other’s way, but Harvey knows how to handle himself, and Mike’s no slouch either, so it doesn’t take long for them to get their act together as Mike moves his hands up to either side of Harvey’s jaw, tilting his face just right, and Harvey releases Mike’s biceps to wrap around his shoulders instead, pulling them closer together.

For an instant, everything is perfect.

(I’ll take it.)

\---

The sun has already begun to rise by the time Harvey opens his eyes.

Cuddled against his chest, Mike doesn’t seem to have woken yet, which is frankly just as well. The poor kid could use some rest after all he’s been through.

Harvey sighs into Mike’s hair. The blurry haze of early morning feels like some sort of beautiful dream, lying in bed with the blankets swathed around their bodies, safe and warm and comfortable and not in any sort of rush. Sure, Jessica’s gone, and he and Louis have to sort out their new managerial partnership, and the firm is still treading water, and Mike hasn’t made any commitment to accept Harvey’s job offer, and Rachel’s probably furious with both of them (or at least with Mike, but it amounts to pretty much the same), but, well…

On the other hand.

Mike sniffles when Harvey wraps his arm around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head.

They’ve suffered through a hell of a lot to get where they are, surviving every single trial and besting every goddamn obstacle that’s been hurled in their way.

Harvey rests his free hand on top of the covers, listening to the sound of early morning traffic on the streets below, vaguely perceiving the gradual change in the light.

For now, for an instant, here’s some perfection.

Everything’s going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> “I guess it’s time to get busy living and get busy dying” and “Watch your back in there” are lifted verbatim from “[25th Hour](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s05e16)” (s05e16).
> 
> Harvey and Rachel’s conversation is lifted verbatim from “[To Trouble](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e01)” (s06e01).
> 
> [601 Lexington Avenue](http://www.601lexington.com/tenant-handbook/building-access/building-access/) (the building where Pearson Specter Litt is housed) is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. [The Mondrian](http://streeteasy.com/building/the-mondrian) is a tall building to the east of 601 Lexington.
> 
> Harvey and Gallo’s confrontation in the yard, and Harvey and Mike’s phone conversation, are lifted verbatim from “[Accounts Payable](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e02)” (s06e02).
> 
> Harvey and Cahill’s conversation is lifted verbatim from “[Back on the Map](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e03)” (s06e03), as is Harvey staring forlornly into Mike’s empty office (although canonically, that happens during the day).
> 
> Harvey sneaking Mike out of Danbury to visit Rachel is canonical (“[Turn](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e04),” s06e04); the business with the photograph of Mike is not.
> 
> Harvey and Louis’s first conversation, about the 90-day suspension notice, is lifted verbatim from “[Trust](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e05)” (s06e05). Their second, when Harvey interrupts Louis planning a date with Tara, is lifted verbatim from “[Shake the Trees](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e07)” (s06e07).
> 
> The dialogue from the trial scene, and Harvey and Mike’s conversation upon Mike’s release, are lifted verbatim from “[The Hand That Feeds](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e09)” (s06e09).
> 
> “The hole” is an American colloquialism for solitary confinement, although prisoners aren’t typically strapped down while they’re in there.
> 
> The canonical dialogue from Harvey and Mike’s conversation at the restaurant (“Whoa, how many people are joining us?” to “If the answer’s still no in a few days, I won’t bring it up again”) is lifted verbatim from “[P.S.L.](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e10)” (s06e10).
> 
> It’s not _explicitly_ stated that Mike and Harvey’s meeting for drinks and a job offer occurs the same day Mike gets out of Danbury, so I took the liberty of treating Rachel to Mike’s first night out of the joint.
> 
> Reader’s choice as to whether Mike and Harvey had sex or just spent the night in the same bed.
> 
> Feel free to say hi on [tumblr](https://statusquoergo.tumblr.com)!


End file.
